Since the US is stuffing turkeys down their faces today, we're a little low on news. As such, let's talk about this sort-of jailbreak for Windows Phone 7 devices. Like iOS, you can't sideload applications by default, and as such, we need to resort to hacks to unshackle Windows Phone 7 phones from the Marketplace. This has been made incredibly easy. Also, just to annoy those that don't like unicorns: PINK FLUFFY UNICORNS DANCING ON RAINBOWS.

MS probably won't close this, they are not nearly as paranoid about such things as other companies. They'll probably just complain about, while patting themselves on the back behind closed doors about how many phones they are selling.

MS probably won't close this, they are not nearly as paranoid about such things as other companies. They'll probably just complain about, while patting themselves on the back behind closed doors about how many phones they are selling.

Well they are continuing to try to build a positive reputation in the consumer segment (Kinect, Xbox 360, etc). This is just one of the ways for them.

If these were wildly popular devices then this hole would be actively closed just like Apple does it.

I'm pretty sure both the xbox 360 and the kinect are wildly popular, the connect hasn't even been out for a quarter,a nd is way over million units sold. The xbox is going to be the sales leader this year.

MS probably won't close this, they are not nearly as paranoid about such things as other companies. They'll probably just complain about, while patting themselves on the back behind closed doors about how many phones they are selling.

This doesn't provide any functionality that isn't already provided by MS. It installs MS' developer certificsate to the device. This normally requires you to pay $99 to get a developer accout at developer.windowsphone.com. Basically, it seems Long, et al., paid the fee, copied the certificate, then made the app to copy the certificate to other devices, bypassing MS' service. There is incentive for MS to block this (support/trust/financial/legal) -- they would probably need to modify their process to incorporate the device's UID into the cert.

However, since it doesn't harm the Marketplace (basically lowers the cost barrier for running your own code on your device to ZuneHD levels), they could remove the cost of developer unlocking devices, and only charge the $99 fee when one intends to submit an app to the Marketplace or take advantage of other services. IIRC, the fee is currently waived for students (DreamSpark).